Album Review

The documentary The Heart Is a Drum Machine explores the eternal question “what is music?,” and Steven Drozd's score for the film is fittingly searching. Drozd was an inspired choice for this project: with the Flaming Lips, he’s helped make songs that show how well music expresses the highs and lows of the human experience. His music for the movie bears more than a passing resemblance to the Lips, though it doesn’t sound much like the band’s own Christmas on Mars soundtrack. Interestingly, The Heart Is a Drum Machine sounds even more sci-fi than that album did, awash in analog synths, Mellotrons and flutes that suggest cosmic spaces on “A Flood of Light” and “Bad Mood Rising.” A dreamy, mystical undercurrent winds through the entire album, from “Born”'s aptly heartbeat-like pulse to the almost orchestral heights of “After the Mutiny,” which evokes the Flaming Lips' most pensive moments. Not all of the score is so weighty, however, as demonstrated by “The Great Pleasures (Dedicated to James …)”'s interstellar lounge-jazz and the sprightly electro-pop twist on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” that is “Requiem for a Dying Star/Ode to a Twinkling New One." The album’s sounds are nearly as varied, ranging from “Quaalude Youth”'s fuzzed-out rock to the Warp-like decaying electronics on “Last Dose” to Maynard James Keenan's surprisingly delicate take on Elton John's “Rocket Man.” It’s not a coincidence that the people behind the Moog documentary crafted The Heart Is a Drum Machine; Moog’s soundtrack was a similarly mixed but entertaining bag. This expressive, emotional film music should please Flaming Lips fans as well as those who enjoyed the movie.

Customer Reviews

LOVE EVERY SONG!

by
DrCMM

Not oly was the movie super cool, the soundrack is totally original and hot. Especially Rocket Man. You get Drozd from the Flaming Lips. You get a new take on an Elton John classic, and the icing on the cake....the vocals of TOOL badass, Maynard James Keenan.